Work And Wages In Europe

The Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, collocted during a reeent visit to Europe, somo interesting particular in regard to tho wages of farm laboref'sy and others in Engbiud, Ireland, and on the continent. Thirtv-seven cents per day he reporta as the highest suin paid, tho laborer boarding himself. In most parts of Ireland, the farm laborer gets but twenty-Sve cents per dny, and boards and todges himgelf- afld at that rate he can not get work half the time. The "day's work," raoreover, is from daylight till dark, no ten-hour system or act protecting the workman on the land. In Ghent, Belgium, tho average priee is about a franc and a half, or about thirty cents a day, the workmen finding themsolvcs. In the neighborhood of Bohn, oa the lthine, it is ten silver groseben, or about twenty-five cents per day. In Viesbadeu it ia from forty-two to forty-eight kreutzers per dsy for workmeu on farms or on roads, or from thirty to thirty-fivc cents. At the farm of the Agrioultural Institute, at Guibery, uear Wiesbaden, the price patd ia thirty-six kreutzers per day, or twentyfour cents, the men in all cases, boarding themselves. fn and about Heidelberg, in the Grand Dushy of TJaden, it variea from forty two to forty eighl kreutzers. In nnd around Cassel, tho daily wages amount to fifteen silver-groschenr0r thirty-seven cents. At tiie Agrioultural College at Weihenstepan, tbe pay for fcmale laborers in the field is tvtentyfour kreutzere, or about eighteen cents per day, iiuding themselves. This is-io harvest time, when the price btghei tlian at other seasonp. These prices everywhere seemed smalt for hard, earnest labor, and I could noÉ help thinking how glad our own farmers would be to givo doublé, and, board their workmen at that. Now it ís truo that the prico of living is not generally quite so high in the cotin tries we have narned is with us, vut the difference is nowher so great as the price paid for labor. In fact, to live as well as our people of the same class do, the cost would be verv nearly the samo. The price ol potatoes, for instance, in the ncighborhnod oí Dublin, is .sevüu penco a stone of fourteen pounds. This ia a cent a pound, or $20 a ton. The price of good butter throughout Ireland is, on an average, a shilling a pound, so that a man bas to work hard tweive or fourteeu hours lo earn a pound of buttW. This is the price in town and country. The modei !arns at Glasnevin got eighteen pence, or thirty-.-ix cents a pound in Janunry of thisyear, 18tï4, aud the lowost price at any time a shilling or thirteen pence, that is twoiity-four and tweuty-six cents. , I made similar inijuiries ;is to the price of comrnon articles, as a means of comparison, eveiywhero I went, and I know about how the case stands, for I made a practico to record such items on the spot. Tho priee of flonr it about as high on tho continent as with us, and L think the same quality of meafs about as' high.